The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is stonewalling a judge’s subpoena of internal documents related to how the medical organization came up with its guidelines for gender-confused minors.
WPATH, a leading advocate for child sex changes, was subpoenaed in March by a federal judge in Alabama after the organization’s guidelines were repeatedly referenced to argue against the state’s restrictions on sex changes for minors during a lawsuit. WPATH has attempted to quash the subpoena, which a judge denied in March. The court case challenges Alabama’s law banning sex changes for individuals under 19. While WPATH argued it was a non-party to the case, the U.S. District Court Judge Liles Burke said in a March ruling that the nature of its guidelines was of “crucial import in this litigation.”
“They’re just doing everything they possibly can to not release them,” Jay Richards, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
“At issue in Alabama is the evidence base for the affirmative care model, and in particular, what studies show about the effectiveness of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for treating minor children who suffer from gender distress,” Joseph Burgo, Vice-director of Genspect, told the Caller. “WPATH insists that its recommendations are science-based and supported by studies demonstrating that the medical approach is effective.”
Experts and advocates who spoke with the Daily Caller in March alleged that the subpoena could cause the entire medical organization to “come crashing down.” They said the subpoena would expose the process, or lack thereof, by which WPATH comes up with its often-cited guidance for transgender children, especially kids.
WPATH recently pushed to remove any minimum age requirement to undergo sex change surgeries or cross-sex hormone therapy. Amy Tishelman, one of the authors of the 8th edition of WPATH’s guidelines, said WPATH changed the guidelines so doctors wouldn’t “be sued because they weren’t following exactly what we said.” Leading hospitals across the country use this guide to craft their medical practices, including Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Brigham and Women’s.
In 2022, WPATH set standards of care for those with a “eunuch” gender identity, recommending hormone suppression, orchiectomy (removal of the testicles) to stop the production of testosterone, orchiectomy with or without penectomy to alter the body to match their self-image and orchiectomy followed by hormone replacement with testosterone or estrogen. WPATH even cited information from the Eunuch Archive, an online forum that contains stories of child castration, pedophilia, and sexual torture.
“Their credibility will be sunk once it becomes clear that activist demands heavily influenced its recent Standards of Care,” Burgo told the Caller. “How else can you account for the introduction of ‘eunuch identity’ in SOC8, without any evidence to support its existence?”